The purpose of the issues practice is to collect and assess issues and control changes to the project’s baseline.
Projects occur in the context of constant organizational and environmental change. The larger the scope of a project and the longer its duration, the greater the probability that it will need to respond to issues and potential changes.
Issue management is at the heart of a project’s monitoring function, and a project cannot be responsive to changes in its organizational and environment context if any member of the project management team filters or censors’ issues.
Definition: issue
An event relevant to the project that requires project management consideration. Issues may be raised at any time during the project by any team member or stakeholder and captured in the project log.
In PRINCE2, issue management encompasses change control.
Definition: change
A change is defined as a modification to any of the approved products that constitute the project baseline.
Changes are not incorporated into the project baseline until they have been approved by the individual or role delegated with the appropriate authority.
Definition: project baseline
The current approved versions of the management products and project products that are subject to change control.
It is important not to judge issues before they are assessed. Change is not something to avoid.
All projects encounter changes, and they must be addressed, not ignored. The key is to handle changes in a responsive but controlled way.
Guidance for effective issue management
The PRINCE2 issue management approach comprises:
- baselines: describes what is subject to change control
- issue resolution: how issues are identified, captured, assessed, and recommended for resolution
- change control: describes how changes to the project baseline are controlled
- delegating authority for changes: allocating authority from the project board down to enable a responsive but controlled way to handle changes change budget: the money set aside in a plan to cover changes.
PRINCE2 7 Baselines
Change can only be assessed in terms of its impact on the project as understood and approved by the project board. At any stage in its lifecycle, the project will comprise a set of management and specialist products.
At any point in time, each product is either in preparation, development, or has been approved. In all cases they will be under change control.
A prerequisite to effective issue management and change control is a way of creating baselines of products that allow changes to be analysed and controlled.
A new version of the product is created each time a change is approved and implemented.
Change control enables those involved to identify when changes have been made and to trace them to a decision made by the appropriate authority.
The issue management approach for a project is driven by the nature of the products to be delivered (the ‘what’ ) and the planned delivery activities (the ‘how’ ).
Therefore, the preparation of this approach usually follows the preparation of product descriptions and work package descriptions.
Regardless of size, scale, and complexity, the project management team needs to determine:
- the appropriate level at which the products need to be baselined, this is generally determined by dividing the project products until they reach the level at which a component can be independently released, installed, replaced, or modified
- the level of control exercised will be influenced by the importance of the project and the complexity of the relationships between its products.
- how products and their versions are identified
- generally, a system of some type will need to be established, providing a unique identifier for each product.
- what information about products needs to be captured and maintained in the project log (for example, versions, status, and relationships with other products).
- the specific authorities and authorizations needed to approve and baselines.
- the procedure to follow to capture and manage issues and changes.
It is good practice to periodically verify that the actual status of the products reflects the authorized state of products and look for any discrepancies. This usually occurs through reviews or audits and is typically undertaken at the end of each stage and at the end of the project.
Project baselines are often managed with a variety of systems.
Management products may be maintained as documents with a simple way of indicating each version and its date of approval.
Specialist products may require a dedicated system. However, each system should ensure that changes cannot be introduced without the appropriate level of approval and provide an audit trail for all changes.
In addition, the product register element of the project log should record the approval and implementation of all changes to the project baseline.
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